A Happy Story in A Small World

Every class I have ever taken has had exams, tests, evaluations, whatever you want to call them. There needs to be some way to evaluate your progress. This morning’s Finance 345 exam was not going to be an easy one, so last night a group of Sport and Recreation Management students and I packed ourselves into a study lounge in Rose Library.

The studying went very well (at least I think it did, I haven’t gotten the results back yet) and as we were leaving, a classmate of mine that I’ve had several classes with over the last few years, Zack, said he was not looking forward to his ride home; he had ridden his bike from Urban Exchange, a downtown apartment complex several miles from the library. I drive my Uncle Jeff’s old Expedition, so I offered to put his bike in the back and get him a ride home.  We did to the bike and my car what we had just done to the finance facts and our heads and headed downtown.

We got to talking and I asked Zack where he had done his internship, which is a graduation requirement of all JMU SRM majors. He told me that this summer he had interned with the Brooklyn Nets. Knowing Uncle Jeff’s friendship through their high school basketball playing days with the Nets’ General Manager, I asked Zack “Did you get a chance to meet Billy King?” Zack responded with a yes and said something I did not expect. Billy and Zack’s dad also played high school basketball together.

Immediately, my face lit up and I nearly slammed on the breaks. “At Park View?!” Zack was stunned. I told him about my uncle having played with Billy as well and that Zack’s dad, Chris Graham, must have known and played with my uncle. For the rest of the car ride, I was halfway between shocked and excited. I don’t think I left Zack with a split second to respond.

I got Zack dropped off and started driving home. Still shocked and now in an empty car, memories of Uncle Jeff zoomed into my head but because I was excited, I couldn’t help but smile. The longest time gone and you are still helping me out; I truly can’t believe it.

Monday marks six months without Uncle Jeff and I miss him very much but remember this is a happy story because he just helped me make a new friend. Thanks Uncle Jeff! And Happy Friday guys!

JMU Students Discuss What Schools are doing to Increase Student Football Attendance

One of the greatest things about JMU is the atmosphere created by the students. From before I was even enrolled, students were up and cheering about what it means for them to be a Duke. Come move-in day, the process was run so smoothly, I was confused; I did not understand how my stuff upstairs in my room when I had not lifted a thing yet. Of course we have our FrOGs to thank for their hard work every year.

After August 1787, more commonly known as FrOG week, our first large event as a student body is Football’s Home Opener. In my case, it was against Morehead State, but when the games start, they all possess that ability to give even the fans the wildest adrenaline rush complete with tailgating, fireworks, a cannon, and of course, purple and gold streamers. But with all the excitement that goes into the beginning of the game, it seems our student body has an apathetic tendency come half time.

Yesterday afternoon, Seniors Cameron McKinley and Dejor Simmons led a group of Sport and Recreation Management students including myself in a discussion about what may steal spectators in the second half. Weather definitely played a factor in whether or not a student would stay, several other interesting reasons also arouse.

Factors such as time of the game played into even simple activities like getting food from dining halls (brought to our attention by SDC President Connor Butler). Dining halls close and students need to leave the game to punch before the students no longer can.

Of course, there’s competition from other teams. Fortunately, today’s Alabama versus Texas A&M starts at 3:30PM EST but if the games were switched and JMU started before the big rematch, how many students would leave to catch Johnny Football show off his skills against the defending National Champions? My guess is that fewer students would remain at the stadium.

Wi-Fi accessibility might help solve this problem, because students could watch the game on their mobile devices, but given a warm room and large TV or the elements and a 2-inch screen, there are still some doubts about whether or not students will stay.

And finally, the biggest appeal to students that leads to apathy is alcohol. It is impossible to ignore. When given the choice of free alcohol or a free football game especially for the under-21 population is easily made. Without the ability to come and go as they please, students will leave for additional alcohol (since their “buzz” has diminished) and Saturdays’ off-campus festivities will begin.

Cameron and Dejor made it clear that this is not just a problem here; even the University of Alabama has problems with student apathy. Their problems aren’t all that dissimilar to JMU’s sometimes; Alabama’s scores become so favorable toward the Crimson Tide, that students know that their team is going to win and head home. JMU has experienced this before, including at last year’s St. Francis game.

While I would hope that the majority of JMU students would consider staying for today’s second half, I understand the draw to leave. My question is: How can JMU accommodate you? Why might you be leaving a JMU Football Matchup?

As always, please comment below by clicking the comment button and I look forward to seeing you at the game versus St. Francis.

            You can also catch Cameron McKinley and Dejor Simmons articles here and follow them on Twitter with their handles, @CameronMcKinle2 and @simmonsboy_5.

Privatize College Athletics: A Chance to Eliminate Conflict between Universities and the NCAA once and for all

One of the largest questions that the NCAA faces from season to season seems simple yes-or-no question; “Should student-athletes be paid?”

With the recent announcements that the NCAA will end its relationship with EA Sports and that six current NFL Players are filing lawsuits against NCAA and EA Sports for allowing for the players’ likenesses and the likenesses of all college football players, to be used in the NCAA Football video game series without compensation, this question is once again being raised.

On top of football, we have a looming problem with NCAA Basketball and the NBA and the transition of players from one level to the next. Players are given scholarships to go to a university, ideally to complete their educations, but then remain with the schools only one year before signing with an NBA Basketball team, thus not finishing their degrees and rendering the money spent on one year of schooling for the player, wasted.

Then we have the problems inside the classroom. While often not spoken of because the topic is considered taboo, professors of student-athletes all over the country are pressured into (whether coerced by a member of an athletics program or through plain guilt of not wanting to be responsible if a student-athlete is unable to play or worse, loses his/her scholarship) making sure that the student-athletes are given ample grades so that the student-athlete may continue to play for the NCAA. Meanwhile, university students that are not student-athletes can comprehend classroom material tenfold compared to the student-athletes with inflated marks. Once all the students from the university have graduated, if the student-athlete with higher marks than he/she deserved is hired by a company because of his/her degree, and does not meet the needs of the business, the employer assumes that all students from that university were held to the same standard to obtain their degrees. The employer no longer hires from that school because the employer assumes that students with the same degree as the student-athlete all fall below the quality of employee for which the employer is searching.

In addition, tax dollars from United States citizens everywhere are spent on college coaches that could otherwise be spent on the welfare of the states. In 40 states, the highest paid public employee is a college coach; 27 football coaches, 12 basketball coaches, and 1 hockey coach. Sadly, the majority of the population is ignorant to the impact of college athletics on their lives, even though for most of them, it affects them more than they could imagine.

And while the negatives of college athletics are easily offered, there are many positives.

            My all-time favorite family event (yes, even greater than opening presents on Christmas morning and Thanksgiving dinner) is a summer barbeque. I love the smell of charcoal, the taste of hamburgers and hotdogs, and the sound of laughter amongst family and friends and there is only one event that can compete. Closely related is the football tailgate which remains one of the greatest traditions of all time.

            Without stable football programs (and basketball programs, as I hope to one day discover with my girlfriend and her family, specifically her father who is an alum of Duke University), we would have no reason to tailgate. We have student-athletes of whom we should be thankful.

            In addition, university bookstores often sell sporting apparel in the form of jerseys, hats, and the ever popular foam finger.  Apparel sales would plummet if athletic programs did not exist. And even Nick Saban cannot take all the credit for what happens on the field, after all his student-athletes are the ones sending and receiving vicious blows.

            I have not even touched on the fact that millions of employees across the United States have jobs (even part-time jobs like mine) that without the efforts of athletics programs and by extension student-athletes would not exist.

            While town hall style debates on the subject like the one on Costas Tonight on April 4, 2012 could continue and civil litigation will continue to be taken to court, I believe there is a much better direction that college athletics programs and college-aged athletes should head to ensure their future.

            The NCAA believes that it may legitimately collapse if student-athletes start receiving compensation, and they have a valid argument. Thousands, if not millions of student-athletes have passed through or otherwise have been a part of the NCAA and if the courts rule on behalf of Eric O’Bannon and his new found “teammates”, the NCAA could be responsible for paying hundreds, if not thousands of dollars to every single student-athlete, current or former. With the potential for millions of dollars being paid to former and current athletes, three questions come to my mind: “Where would the money come from?”, “What if the money runs out?” and “What would that hold for future student-athletes and college athletics programs as a whole?”

            As you can see based on the title of this post, my idea suggests privatizing college athletics. By privatizing college athletics, college-aged athletes would no longer be subject to the rules of the NCAA which are designed to keep a fair balance between the average college student and his/her student-athlete counterpart.
            First of all, separating the two, separating the two allows for the payment of players which eliminates the need for Parts III and IV of Form 08-3a, a form that all NCAA athletes are required to sign if they want to play, and the backbone of Jay Bilas’s argument for pay-to-play. Parts III and IV deal specifically with the amateur status of an athlete and the promotion of NCAA Championships and Events.

            Of course, there’s a catch. Privatized college athletics programs would be considered entities separate from the universities they used to belong. In fact, they would not be considered “college athletic programs” merely semi-professional programs next to or in the middle of universities.

            Now that they are separate entities, college-aged athletes would no longer be entitled to scholarships directly from their former universities, only pay, which the athlete could use to pay from his/her education if he/she so chooses.

            Without the student being attached to the athlete, there is no longer a conflict of interest for professors who would have otherwise inflated grades to help student-athletes remain eligible.

In addition, this eliminates the difficulties between the NCAA and the NBA regarding players that play for a single season before entering the NBA Draft and therefore wasting a year’s worth of scholarship.

Tax dollars go back in the pockets of state governments and in turn the governments could respond by contributing money toward alternative causes relevant to each state, including the possibility of allocating additional funds toward public universities that would have seen a decrease in revenue from campus bookstores and the like that no longer sell collegiate sports apparel.

Job growth would likely increase, due to the opening up of player agent possibilities and therefore legal consul that would be needed to represent the teams.

The looming question here is “Who would buy the programs?” The glory of it all is that university athletic programs have donor programs. If the new semi-professional programs incorporated and offered to allow the donors to buy stock, instead of contributing to the programs, the programs would be well on their ways to privatizing and the donors still remain attached the programs that once belonged to the university.

Finally, as we’ve seen in the English Premier League, corporate sponsors are valuable tools. Corporations could purchase the remaining shares needed to keep the teams functioning and there is no incentive to alert logos by the new teams because the goodwill held by the logos is much too valuable. If Coca-Cola bought the athletics programs from the University of North Carolina, fans who would normally buy tickets would no longer be satisfied if the Tarheels colors were red and white.

Corporations have the added bonus of it being a marketing deal. “The Crimson Tide” owned by “Tide” would be an invaluable asset to “Tide” if the “Crimson Tide” program continued to win national championships like it has in recent history.

I’ll admit it. I have not ironed out all of the details. I don’t even know my own opinion on the topic but it may be a way to keep college-aged athletes competing and entertaining schools throughout the country. I believe that this option provides the most benefits to everyone in the great United States.

Please comment. I would love to hear your opinions of my idea.